Author's Note: Not every fight is going to be a multi-chapter extravaganza. We need to save my energy so the finals can be at least two-chapters, perhaps even three! I really want to push through here to the climactic pieces of this first multi-arc I am calling the "Canon Arc". After we finish resolving the tournament, setting up the gym, and Mewtwo's hunt we will have a small time skip and be full out of canon territory. Which will resolve a few of the complaints about the SI not being bold enough and his encouragement of Ash to his own possible detriment.

Isaac's Team:

Nidoqueen- Cleo
Marowak- Estella
Rhydon- Alberich
Quagsire- Huckleberry
Piloswine- Alexei
Alolan Sandslash- Brinker
Kleavor- Artagnan
Perrserker- Rum Tum
Aerodactyl- Hannibal
Krookorok- Lyle
Kabutops- Axel
Omastar- Grauben
Flygon- Shahrazad
Giant Golurk- Mr. Darcy
Magearna- Ozma

Chapter 27: Hands of Stone

Otoshi had been a disappointment so far. It wasn't that his pokemon were necessarily bad, in fact he had gotten here to the semi-finals so they were great.

The problem was that he only had a full fighting team, not substitutes. So it was quite easy to create a counter-play team against him, even with focusing fully in on my ancient pokemon.

That meant I had Artagnan, Hannibal, Grauben, and Axel as the main core. I brought Estella again, because a mirror match duel is always a spectacle. Finally, I had Huckleberry on my belt in case his kingler was stronger than I expected. I severely doubted it however.

It turned out to be correct. Axel by himself swept away the dodrio, nidorino, and kingler. I finally returned him, feigning exhaustion, just to give my other pokemon a workout.

I winced when our simultaneous releases ended up with Hannibal up against a rapidash.

It put up an admirable fight as it dodged a Rock Slide and an Ice Fang, but I had Hannibal box it in and the second Rock Slide swept it away.

And then the follow-up of muk did not have any long distance moves, so I had Hannibal Dragon Dance twice in the air before blitzing the ooze pokemon with a Fire Fang that immediately knocked it out.

Another simultaneous return and release and our marowaks were facing off against each other.

"We're at a stunning one to five match as Isaac Beech continues to sweep this round. Will we see the end of this with a mirror match? Or will Otoshi's starter pull out a victory and close the point gap further?"

Immediately Estella met his marowak in a clash of Bone Club against Bone Club. A ferocious combination of strikes from both sides shot out.

I noticed that Otoshi's marowak favored a slashing style as if it were utilizing a katana or similar slashing blade. This made sense, as Otoshi was from Fuschia and had been a gym trainer under Koga for a bit.

Meanwhile I'd pulled up videos over the years and had Estella train as if she were using a short staff, or jō, and thus she had become extremely proficient in jōjutsu over the years. I had even taken up the martial art partially myself, if only to help her train on technique and control. I was never going to be sturdy enough to spar with her.

Well…actually…I thought to myself about the strange new techniques I had been playing around with. I planted my feet into the metal platform and tried to spread my odd awareness downwards.

After a moment of struggle I connected this odd sixth sense through the metal and down into the dirt and clay of the arena. I could feel the ground-type energy surging each time they came to blows.

It was fascinating. But it also was distracting me from calling out strategies mid-fight. Our opponent worked a Stomping Tantrum into the middle of his combination and the surge of ground-type energy overwhelmed my senses for a second and I did not respond in time to get Estella a solid response.

She improvised well enough, going into her Skull Bash and Bide combination, but she was still sent to her knees and took a Bone Club straight to her dome.

"Unleash!" I called out as our opponent pulled back for a follow up.

The white torrent of power shot out of her body and slammed her opponent backwards. The damage from both the Tantrum and the Bone Club had been decent, though the Skull Bash stance's defense increase had partially mitigated it.

Our opponent had not been knocked out, he stumbled to his feet a bit groggily however, and that gave Estella time to recover.

"Bonemerang!" I called out and she sent her bone flying out in a spinning discus of doom.

It bounced off of a messy deflection from Otoshi's pokemon. But a light flex of energy control caused it to curve around and return to Estella's hands.

"A stunning show of martial art prowess from both marowak here today folks!" The announcer screamed.

"Indeed," Professor Oak cut in, "Both marowak show amazing finesse and technique not typically seen in wild examples of their species. I believe that Otoshi's marowak is using a variation of kendo and Isaac's is using a variation of either jōjutsu or bartitsu. I would have to see if she incorporates more unarmed attacks than just the headbutts to her style before I made a call on which it was."

Damn, Professor Oak really knew his stuff didn't he? He had pulled all of that together just from watching a few swift exchanges. I actually had originally considered teaching Estella bartitsu, but she hadn't taken as well to the elemental punches as she had to the offensive and defensive mixed usage of Headbutt and Skull Bash. I'd been hoping she could be the first marowak to ever develop the usage of Head Smash, but so far we'd not figured it out at all. Maybe with this new ability to sense my connected type-energies we could push that in the next year or two.

I had enough pokemon that could develop Earthquake or Earth Power already, so I had not focused heavily on the Stomping Tantrum or similar skill line for Estella. That didn't mean we hadn't practiced countering it. Earthquake was one of the most prevalent finishing moves in the competitive scene after all. Lots of pokemon could learn it, whether through training or TMs, and it hit many things super-effectively.

"Club the ground!" I called out as another Stomping Tantrum came towards her, this time from much further away giving her time to respond.

She flooded her club with ground-energy and then slammed it into the ground in front of her. It worked like a boulder in a river, allowing the stream of rippling earth to split around the club, leaving her safe in a calm piece of the arena.

"That's it, we need to break out the big guns, Marowak, unleash the Waterfowl Dance!"

My mind blipped as I suddenly had some sort of horrifying waking dream flashback to…dying a half dozen times to a woman with a sword? That couldn't be right.

I shook it off and as I did I saw the marowak hovering in the air with his bone club twirling.

That couldn't be good.

"Outlast Combination!" I called out.

This was the pinnacle of our defensive work.

Estella took a sideways stance, her bone club lowered behind her and pushed into the dirt, and her skull dipped forward, shining with the defensive boost of Skull Bash, a shine meant to hide the duller shine of the rest of her body as she triggered Bide and Endure.

She could not hold this combination for long, but luckily she didn't have to.

Faster than I ever expected a marowak to move Otoshi's burst through the air with his bone club swinging violently. So violently in fact that the equivalent of multiple Vacuum Wave attacks seemed to rocket off of it, hammering into Estella's skull as he finally came down onto her with a double diagonal into an overhead slash combination.

Obviously this was not a move he could cancel out of easily, because as the first of the final three hit combination struck and Estella began to glow brighter I saw Otoshi's eyes widen in realization.

As the last hit landed on her skull I also saw the marowak realize what he was about to be hit with.

Suddenly all the glowing energy rushed into her bone club behind her and she whipped it around and jabbed it straight into her opponent's gut.

"KATHOOM!" A massive explosion of energy rang out and when the dust cleared Otoshi's marowak was embedded into a giant crater on the arena wall…and Estella was sleeping on the ground, the final burst of energy having knocked her out from where the Endure left her.

It was very much a sacrificial attack at this point, she'd never managed to survive the resulting explosion if Endure had triggered.

"A-amazing! After an explosive finish, the match is four to zero in favor of Isaac Beech! He will go on to the finals! Now the question that remains is who shall he face? Another spunky rookie in Ash Ketchum of Pallet Town? Or the electric second year competitor, Katrina Vance? Our next semi-final match starts here in two hours and forty-five minutes!"

I bowed in respect to Otoshi and returned Estella, she'd earned quite the rest. I might not even be able to use her in the finals with the stunt we had just pulled.

Unfortunately, while I had managed to generally dodge reporters in favor of releasing catered written statements, I was not so lucky this time.

"Mr. Beech! Mr. Beech!" I looked around for my father, though that would be Doctor Beech wouldn't it? And then sighed, damn, she meant me.

"Yes…Miss?"

"Rena Dash, with Battle TV! I was wondering if we could have a moment of your time for a quick post-battle interview!"

I put on a positive face and turned to face her cameraman, "Of course! Though I would ask you to keep questions as relevant to the battle itself as possible. My father and I are putting out statements on the ancient pokemon as we have our findings reviewed and edited, and I hope you respect that in the spirit of the scientific method I cannot spoil any hypotheses before they are tested or published."

Her smile looked a little more forced now, "Well I am sure we can make do with that! Though you did use two of those ancient pokemon today, correct?"

I answered in the affirmative, "Yes, Axel and Hannibal, my kabutops and aerodactyl are certainly relevant topics today."

"How do you control such a ferocious and powerful pokemon as the aerodactyl?" She asked, "Elite Four Lance has one and is in fact part of the reason why only Master-level trainers in rock, flying, or dragon types are allowed to even apply to have one resurrected from a fossil at your father's laboratory. His reports are that they are almost as difficult to train as a snorlax and a dragonite mixed into one pokemon!"

I chuckled at the mental image, "That is a phenomenal summation of the difficulties of working with an aerodactyl. Though I think I started off with an edge, as Lance's was resurrected at full maturity, in my opinion a small downside of my father's resurrection techniques, and was not raised from the egg by him. Thus my acquisition of my aerodactyl through battle in the soon to be published underground cavern network I discovered allowed me to start the relationship in a more typical fashion. This meant I had Hannibal's respect for my power from the start, he knew he was coming into a clear hierarchy with other strong pokemon above him. Though I have had to spend a lot of my income on premium tauros steaks, even with that edge."

She nodded in understanding, "Like a mix of a dragon type and a snorlax indeed! Now we have noticed that a significant number of your pokemon appear to be trained in martial arts techniques, while not entirely uncommon, it is rare for a trainer to have multiple pokemon trained in such a diverse set of martial arts. How has that factored into your training?"

"Once again I am coming in with an edge, my time at Pokemon Tech allowed me years of extra training time, in particular technical training time, over other first year conference attendees. Professor Oak is correct, Estella has been working on jōjutsu since she was a cubone! And Artagnan, my kleavor, when he was a scyther I had him training in multiple dual bladed forms, though none fit perfectly, so it was mostly foundational techniques for him to create his own style."

"Ah yes, that kleavor is magnificent! An ancient evolution of scyther, and I take it his style has been picked up by your kabutops as well? I noticed in the two battles I have seen them both that outside of having different special moves that their forms are quite similar!"

That had me appraising this woman differently, she was young for a full professional, likely only two or three years older than me, but as a battle reporter perhaps…

"Dash…oh, I recognize it now! You won the Silver Conference four years back at…sixteen?"

Her smile broadened and she flipped her shoulder length blue hair for dramatic effect. "Indeed I did! Gave a pretty good showing against Elite Four Blaine before he retired too, if I don't say so myself."

I nodded in agreement, "I saw that fight! Your blitz style was impressive. That hitmonlee of yours…I've never seen one move so fast! And the usage of Fake Out and Feint were masterful!"

"I appreciate that even someone specializing in some of the slower types can appreciate speed!" She quipped, "Brock is all 'rock hard defense this' and 'plant yourself like a mountain' that when I interview him."

I laughed, "I've worked with him in conjunction with his kabuto a few times, and I do believe he has given me that piece of advice on my rhydon! But working with some odd dual-types like kleavor, aerodactyl, and my Alolan sandslash gives me an appreciation for some hybrid fighting styles."

"Yes, and let's speak to that, you tend to favor boosting techniques and chain combinations, does that sound like a fair assessment?"

I nodded once more, "Absolutely. In fact you might say that only Cleo, my nidoqueen and starter, does not follow that path. Though two of my pokemon I have yet to use in the conference utilize that style slightly less than the rest of my team."

"Oh? Do you think we'll see them in your final match?"

I grinned, "I have no doubt that my good friend, Ash Ketchum, is in for quite the set of surprises in our match."

"Calling the next match for the rookie already?" She said in sincere shock.

"Absolutely, I have absolute faith in that young man. He has never failed to impress me. When it comes to battle he only ever needs to learn something once, and the bonds he has with his pokemon astound me."

"Really? I have seen articles complimenting you on your bonds with your pokemon, but you say Mr. Ketchum's bonds are even deeper?"

"In many ways I think I can agree with that statement, while you see very close bonds with my pokemon I had to work and fight for those in a few cases. With Ash? It feels like he forms them instantly, even with wild pokemon that do not stay with him!"

The interview soon wrapped up and I found myself walking away pretty happy about it.